SpaceXAI's Grok now works inside Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, sitting in the same side panel as Google's own Gemini. The company released the free add-on in July, and a new hands-on report shows what it can do: draft documents, build slide decks from an outline, and answer spreadsheet questions with citations to the exact cells it used. One install from the Google Workspace Marketplace covers all three editors, and administrators can deploy it across an entire organisation. The catch is access: Grok asks to see, edit, create and delete your Docs and Slides, and to send what it reads back to SpaceXAI.
What Grok does in Docs, Sheets and Slides
In Docs, Grok writes directly onto the page, turning rough notes into a formatted draft with headings and lists. Its edits land as visible revisions in version history, so every change can be traced and undone. With connectors on, it can also pull context from emails or Drive files — a wider door than one document.
In Slides, Grok builds a deck from an outline and adds new slides that match the existing theme, researching the topic from the web or from X. The hands-on test asked for a six-slide deck on Grok's own accuracy record since 2025, with cited sources on every slide and a reliability rating at the end.
In Sheets, Grok reads the ranges you select, answers with citations, points to the specific cells it used, writes formulas into the formula bar and inserts charts. It can also rerun a scenario when an assumption changes, with each change saved as an ordinary edit that can be undone later.
How to install it
Installation takes a few clicks. Open the listing on the Google Workspace Marketplace, click Install, choose the Google account and click Continue — or install it from inside Docs, Sheets or Slides through Extensions, Add-ons and Get add-ons. Open any file, go to Extensions, Grok and Open Grok, then sign in once. After that, Grok is ready in every editor.
The permissions question
The permission screen is where the decision gets serious. Grok asks to see, edit, create and delete all Google Docs files and every Slides presentation in the account, even when installation starts inside a single file. Its Sheets access is narrower, covering only spreadsheets where the add-on is installed.
Its overall Drive access stretches only to files used with Grok, but the add-on also asks to connect to an external service, which lets it send what it reads to SpaceXAI. The reviewer's answer was to test it on a secondary account rather than a main one — a reasonable precaution for anyone weighing the trade-off.
Grok vs Gemini
Gemini is built into Workspace by default, opening from the Ask Gemini icon in Gmail, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Drive and Chat — but it is not free. Work accounts need an eligible Workspace plan, while personal accounts need a Google AI Plus, Pro or Ultra subscription.
Grok costs nothing to add, and it is the only one of the two that pulls research from X into what it generates. Gemini reaches more apps, and if you already pay for it there is little reason to switch — unless you specifically want X citations in your documents.
Our Read
The story here is distribution, not features. Grok is a capable assistant, but Docs, Sheets and Slides already have one — Gemini, built in and paid for. SpaceXAI is planting its chatbot inside Google's productivity suite, free, where Workspace users already work. That is a land grab dressed as an add-on, and the price of entry is the permission screen.
The quality question is open. The hands-on test found Grok's document drafting uneven — one set of notes came back as what the reviewer called AI slop — while its spreadsheet work, with cell citations and real formulas, looked stronger. That split matters: formulas you can check are useful, while prose you must rewrite is a chore.
The free price tag also raises a question SpaceXAI has not answered: how a free add-on that sends your files to its servers pays for itself. Musk has already said serving Grok Bot costs more than it earns, which makes free distribution a strategy to watch, not just a bargain.
Why It Matters
For users, the add-on is the simplest free way to get an AI side panel into Google Workspace — if they are comfortable with the access it asks for. Microsoft faced the same question with Copilot in Windows Search and made it opt-in, a reminder that the choice should sit with the user.
For Google, a rival chatbot now sits beside Gemini in its own editors, free where Gemini is paid. For the industry, it shows the assistant wars moving from standalone apps into the documents and spreadsheets where work actually happens, and the next contest is which chatbot is already open when you start typing.
Background
Grok has been pushing beyond chat this month. Its Bot agent recently started making phone calls on users' behalf, and its API text now carries a hidden watermark by default under the EU AI Act. The Workspace add-on is the same push in a different direction: Grok meeting users inside the tools they already open every day.
Source: Engadget's hands-on report and SpaceXAI's Workspace page
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